"He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate's appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished. There was a cool recklessness in his face and a cynical humour in his mouth as he smiled at her, and Scarlett caught her breath."(Margaret Mitchell, Gone With the Wind.)

 Rhett Butler has long been remembered as one of the most dashing and attractive men ever fictitiously created. He is cynical, sarcastic, mocking, contemptuous, rebellious, disrespectful and darkly appealing. He is handsome and conceited, taunting yet surprisingly kind, enormously masculine yet understanding of females, and utterly in love with Scarlett. Essentially, what Mitchell did when she created Rhett (although she based him on her first husband Red) was take all the wickedest dreams of women and sew them together with the more angelic ones, to create what is theoretically the perfect man.

On Feb. 1, 1901, Clark Gable was born to Bill and Adeline Gable, in Cadiz. When Clark was only 9 months old, his mother died, leaving him to the care of his father. Bill Gable soon remarried to Jennie Dunlap. Clark was raised in Hopedale, and remained there until he was 16, when he decided to move to Akron, Ohio, and took a job with a railroad company. In Akron, Gable saw his first play and was entranced. He would hang around the music hall begging to help out, until they allowed him to take on a job as a call boy.
  Clark's father took him to Oklahoma to work. Clark hated Oklahoma and left after two years, arguing so bitterly with his father before he left that they would not speak again for 10 years. After that Clark moved to Oregon, where he married his acting coach, Josephine Dillion, who was much older than him. In 1930 he divorced Josephine so that he could marry Ria Langham, who helped him to develop that Gable style that he would be remembered for. In 1932, Clark reached full fledged stardom with Red Dust, starring Jean Harlow. In 1934 he won an oscar for his performance in It Happened One Night. In 1939 he divorced Ria so that he could marry actress Carole Lombard, whom he had fallen hopelessly in love with. In 1939, he also starred in Gone With the Wind as Rhett Butler. It would be the role that he would be most remembered for.
  In 1942, Carole Lombard was killed in a plane crash, leaving Clark grief-stricken. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps, as Carole had previously asked him to do.
  In 1949, he married Sylvia Ashley, but they quickly divorced each other. In 1955, he married Kay Spreckels, out of friendship more that anything else.
  On November 16, 1960, William Clark Gable died of a heart attack, having just finished making The Misfits, with Marilyn Monroe.  He was buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery, besides Carole Lombard.  On March 3, 1961,   John Clark Gable, the son that Clark had always wanted was born.